Editor’s note: For the latest news on COVID-19, visit http://bit.ly/AAPNewsCOVID19.
COVID-19 vaccines for the 2024-’25 season are being shipped and should be arriving soon in pediatricians’ offices.
Moderna has started shipping vaccines for all ages, while Pfizer-BioNTech has started shipping doses for people ages 5 years and older. Doses for children under 5 years should start shipping by next week.
Clinicians can check on the timing of Vaccines for Children program doses with their state program.
While COVID-19 levels vary by state, wastewater testing by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates COVID levels are very high nationally and especially in the South and West. The mRNA vaccines authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Aug. 22 are monovalent vaccines that target the omicron variant KP.2 strain and better match circulating strains.
The AAP and CDC recommend everyone 6 months and older get an updated vaccine as protection from last season’s vaccines likely has waned. Both groups emphasize that children are not immune from severe disease.
“COVID-19 can cause disease in children, and we know that vaccination is the safest way to protect against COVID-19,” Katherine Fleming-Dutra, M.D., FAAP, said during an AAP/CDC webinar on preparing for respiratory virus season. Dr. Fleming-Dutra leads the vaccine effectiveness and policy team at the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
Half of children under 18 who were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the 2023-’24 season had no underlying chronic conditions, according to the CDC. Only 5% of children and adolescents hospitalized with COVID had received a 2023-’24 vaccine dose.
Data from the end of August also show children under 5 years have the highest proportion of emergency department visits diagnosed as COVID compared to any other age group.
“The burden of disease in children, in healthy children even, is still quite high,” Sean T. O’Leary, M.D., M.P.H., FAAP, chair of the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases, said during the AAP/CDC webinar. “It’s less than it was early in the pandemic, but we’re still seeing unfortunately quite a few pediatric deaths from COVID-19, and those are all essentially preventable with vaccination.”
Vaccine manufacturers expect to have adequate supply this season. Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines for children under 12 years are 100% returnable unless contract terms differ. For adolescent/adult vaccine, 30% of doses from Pfizer and 10% from Moderna are returnable.
The CDC recommendations for mRNA vaccines call for unvaccinated children ages 6 months through 4 years to receive three doses of Pfizer-BioNTech or two doses of Moderna. Previously vaccinated children in this age group are eligible for one or two doses from the same manufacturer depending on the previous COVID-19 vaccine received. Everyone ages 5 years and older is recommended to get a single dose. People who are immunocompromised may be eligible for additional doses.
People who recently received a COVID-19 vaccine should wait two months before getting the 2024-’25 vaccine. If they were infected with COVID recently, they can consider waiting up to three months. COVID-19 vaccines can be administered at the same time as other vaccines.
The FDA also has authorized Novavax’s updated protein-based COVID-19 vaccine for people ages 12 and older. The vaccine targets the omicron JN.1 strain of SARS-CoV-2. The CDC is finalizing its dosing recommendations for the vaccine.
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